Game Review: Terraria

Summary Judgement: If you dig deep enough and long enough, you might just find where this game has hidden all its fun.

Developed by: Re-Logic

Available on PC

Most days I find myself very supportive of indie video games. I got onboard with Minecraft when it was in an early alpha release because I saw the value in a game that offered a sandbox experience akin to playing with lego. When Markus Persson, the creator of Minecraft, tweeted about an upcoming indie game called Terraria, I paid attention. In its demo reel, Terraria seemed like a cross between Wonderboy, Metroid and Minecraft. Terraria’s ten dollar price point also seemed like a great way to stop myself from running out and impulse buying L.A. Noire, at least for a little while longer. After spending a few afternoons with this 2D side scrolling adventure/RPG/crafting game, I find myself rather disappointed.

For my taste, Terraria is way too cute. While the game offers a decent character customization system, something Minecraft does not, all of the characters that I created reminded me of those terrifying fifteen minutes I spent playing Maple Story circa 2008. The in-game music, which consists of two songs, one for day and one for night, descended from whimsy to saccharine within half an hour of gameplay. Even the level design oozes cuteness. During the daytime, the only monsters I found were “slimes” of various colour. Sorry, Re-Logic, but slime didn’t intimidate me in Dragon Warrior and it fails to impress in your game. At night, the floating “demon eyes” are reasonably grotesque but their impact is offset by the Maple Story-esque zombies that shamble about the map. The real tragedy occurs when elements of the game design start subverting a serious mood in favour of cuteness. Case in point, I should feel just a little anxious when spelunking in a cavern. The fact that my torches light areas behind the cave, not just my immediate surroundings, makes any cave dive feel way too safe. Pair that with the happy daytime music and it’s a recipe for enough cuteness as to make me want a hit of insulin.

In addition to being too cute, Terraria is too slow. It takes forever to dig anywhere in the game. Even when I upgraded my copper pick axe (yes you dig through everything with a pick axe, not a shovel) to an iron pick axe I still found myself envious of the fun my cat was having as he chased his tail. Since digging for rare materials quickly became an exercise in tedium, I found myself running along the surface of the 2D world in an attempt to find some easy access to crafting materials. Half an hour later, I found a scant amount of iron but lots of clay, copper, sand and “slime” droppings.

Terraria’s crafting system is hardly any better than its mining. Building a workbench allowed me to press a button and see a list of buildable objects. A few more clicks produced a bunch of bricks and a forge. Upon placing my forge I could push a button and see a list of even more potential creations. My problem with this system is two-fold. On the one hand, there’s no room for experimentation and discovery. Half the fun of crafting in a game like Minecraft is experimenting to see what materials turn into other things. Terraria puts it all out there, perhaps reflecting society’s need for instant gratification in their games. The other issue is that it takes too many materials to build anything useful. Due to the slowness of the game’s mining, hunting for iron or silver ore is an excruciating grind. This grind is made all the more demoralizing due to the high cost of building anything. It takes three iron ore blocks to make an iron ore brick. Twelve of those bricks are needed for a pickaxe. During my hours of play, I never found more than fifteen iron ore bricks in a single mineral vein. Good luck trying to build a suit of armour at that rate. If this game ever wants to win me back, it needs to balance crafting with the time investment it demands for mining.

From my perspective, the game’s biggest failing is its mediocre status as a creativity engine. Terraria boasts the ability to create a world. The game’s in-game guide told me that if I build some houses, other NPCs might move in. Although I built three rather nice single-family homes, I’ve yet to see any new neighbours – see my previous point about the game being too damn slow. Assuming that the huddled masses eventually appear at the doors to my gated community, I don’t like that I can only offer them two dimensional constructions. I’ll admit that this is a bit of Minecraft prejudice coming through in my review, but I can only build so many 2D wireframes before it gets boring.

But Shaftoe, you could build a house shaped like a rocket ship for the people.

Fair point. However, a person of my limited artistic abilities likes it when he can build things in an actual 3D environment. Making buildings look pretty in Terraria requires setting other blocks in the background to give the illusion of depth. I couldn’t make something look 3D on paper when I was in the 7th grade and I still have a hard time with it now. I’d rather build a Saturn V rocket in Minecraft than a rocket shaped outline in Terraria. One feels like an artistic endeavour, of sorts, the other is frustrating and pointless.

In the final assessment, I find myself wondering where this game will find its audience. Creative types who have already discovered Minecraft aren’t likely to invest much time in Terraria. The game’s over the top cuteness will probably drive away hard core gamers. Casual gamers will run screaming for the hills when they realize how long it will take them to build anything useful. I thought about Terraria as a children’s game, but I’m not sure if they possess the attention span to deal with the game’s slow pacing. For want of any real fun, or internal gratification that comes with building a cubist sailboat, I don’t know why anybody would want to play Terraria.

This game isn’t about mining, if you instead found a cave, and followed that cave, the resource gathering is magnitudes easier. If you spend hours mining for minerals you are gonna have a tough time, ores generate more frequently near the walls of caves.

Also slimes are not the only monster Unlike minecraft this games combat system isn’t a 100%mouse spam fest. more like only 75% relative to minecraft. its actually kinda fun fighting the zombies in this game. Slimes yes are annoying, but not hard to fend off. You are encouraged to go out at night and into caves Because of the lack of materials elsewhere, and if you decided to sit in your safe house and mine strait down for minerals because you are playing like its minecraft, then you are not in the right mindset to review this game.

This game isn’t minecraft. This game is closer to Zelda than it is minecraft in that its about character leveling through gear, and about fighting monsters in various areas.

It’s odd that you complain that Terraria is too slow and that you didn’t find the materials you wanted in half an hour… but then you lament “society’s need for instant gratification in their games”. It sure sounds like you wanted the materials handed to you faster.

Also, the complaint about this game being “too cute” is bizarre. Do you only play games that are macho/manly? If so, then you’re missing out on some of the best games of all time. Mario 3 and A Link to the Past come to mind as classics that are cuter than Terraria. I must admit that I laughed when you said Terraria is too cute for hard core gamers.

Just for context, I haven’t played Terraria or Minecraft yet, so I’m not a fanboy or whatever. I’m intrigued by both games, and I was googling for Terraria reviews when I found yours.

I don’t want the mats faster, I want a proper balance between the impossibility of finding anything useful and the rate at which they are consumed within the game.

Neither is it a question of macho content within the game. It’s just too much cute for me to take seriously the things that are supposed to be gruesome. Professorlava said in the last comment that there are lots of gibs in the game, this is true. But for my time the music and character design – which I would predominantly categorize as cute – trump everything else.

As for your point on Mario and Zelda, I’ve never found them particularly cute. I suppose that, however, is a matter of perspective. I will say that both of those games had the benefit of a clear objective. I knew where the game was going, even if I didn’t know how to get there. That fact helped give the games a sense of fun that Terraria, in its current form, is desperately lacking.

A good review, but sadly I must say its a little repedative. You compare Terraria to Minecraft, a little too much. Instead of reviewing Terraria as it’s own game, you reviewed the game compared to minecraft. This loses the feel of the game. It makes this review more like a rant. You also must admit that there are some positives to this game, such as the boss spawning system or the alost unlimited exploration.

Fair point. Some of my beef comes from the fact that the game was pitched to me in a “if you like minecraft you will love this” context. I won’t deny that influenced my expectations of the game. Setting that aside I still think the game has its problems. Iron seemed disproportionately hard to find in relation to the rate at which it gets used up while crafting. The music got old after about five or six day/night cycles. The fun of the limitless exploration was overshadowed by what felt like too much mouse clicking. If a player doesn’t stand in the exact right spot the building and deploying of torches tends to get a little sluggish. Where my detractors are quick to inform me that this game compares more to Zelda than Minecraft, I ask where’s the quest in this game? Perhaps I gave up on it too soon but I despite my best efforts I never really got to the fun part of this game. Hell I didn’t even see this boss spawning system that you talked about.

I like to research games before I invest in them and arrived at this site via the great interview with SPAZ developers; a fantastic game by two chaps based in Vancouver. I didn’t read any other review, prior to playing.

I bought the game for £1.49, for what I paid and from what I read here, I didn’t expect this type of game. It was bought via steam so ofc glancing the 80/100 metacritic score gave me a backing of confidence.

This game is so huge and addictive. I never found myself lost for purpose. I get to do what I want and thus ignored the tutorial guy. Build a house? No way! I’m going mining and I’m not coming back till my pockets are stuffed.

Incredibly difficult lower down the caverns when you meet worms, I find I hadn’t the true grit to defeat them in the narrow caverns so instead I crafted myself a huge lair for them so they couldn’t avoid my attacks beneath walls. It was built out of pure wooden beams, and along came with it the illusion I could fly & avoid all manner of monster.

Such a rush pushing deeper and deeper knowing that you should probably go back up topside to craft some new gear, but more and more new materials to discover, they never stop.

If you ever think you should revisit the game, try and buddy up with someone online. Take on the game together and play co-op. I can’t wait to play the final build of the game co-op when they sort out the Beta. Also if you don’t want to dig for new tools, just put up a simple accommodation for a few town folk and buy them instead. With the accommodation you say you built, maybe there were some blunders the help guide will remedy. I know I spent an awful amount of time learning this the hard way, that wasn’t fun even with help, but once learned it was easy to forgive and forget.

Music in the game changes depending on time of day, location, depth and special events. I’m particularly intrigued how many tracks relate to the different depth levels in the game. It sent chills of danger down my spine when I first hit the next lower core, I found safety going back to the border but when this far down already, it’s hard not to press on (and die, again and again).

Truly an open-world, push your luck, champions of loot adventure. I found my first dungeon a few days ago and an old man trapped by a curse at the entrance. I hope you find a chance to review this game after it comes out of beta. Maybe then Minecraft won’t cast such a shadow over this excellent title. Over the top cutey-cute? well you’ve gotta explore to the putrid corruption to avoid that. The niceyness only serves to make the evil tainted earth sectors, all the more evillitious. Towns are meant to be uplifting places, who’d move in to your houses otherwise.

Hmm. I thought the game that I bought for about $10 USD was the final product, not the beta. Regardless, you’ve made a good case for the game so much so that I’ll give it another look – I’m just as prone to mistakes as the next guy. Worms and putrid dungeons would certainly balance out the cutesy things. Cheers.